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Monday, January 11, 2010

Brooks made 'uncomfortable' by free people

As America lurches on toward disaster, David Brooks finds the nation to be 'unsettled'.

"Americans have lost faith in their institutions. During the great moments of social reform, at least 60 percent of Americans trusted government to do the right thing most of the time. Now, only a quarter have that kind of trust."

Well David, experience is a harsh teacher.

"The public is not only shifting from left to right. Every single idea associated with the educated class has grown more unpopular over the past year."

The educated class believes in global warming, so public skepticism about global warming is on the rise. The educated class supports abortion rights, so public opinion is shifting against them. The educated class supports gun control, so opposition to gun control is mounting.

This reminds me of the scene in The Jerk, where Steve Martin wrongly assumes the wack job trying to kill him is trying to aim for the oil cans. Public skepticism about global warming is on the rise, Dave, because the Hadley CRU document dump demonstrated that the 'science' was being manipulated by a few central proponents and their allies in government. That and the fact that we are all freezing our butts off for the second winter in a row.

"The tea party movement is a large, fractious confederation of Americans who are defined by what they are against. They are against the concentrated power of the educated class. They believe big government, big business, big media and the affluent professionals are merging to form self-serving oligarchy — with bloated government, unsustainable deficits, high taxes and intrusive regulation."

If you wish to phrase it in the negative, than yes, they are against bloated government, unsustainable deficits, high taxes and intrusive regulation. I would prefer to state it in the positive - that they are for the people of the United States, that they believe in the US Constitution, which protects them from the tyranny of the Federal government and all its soft slavery. But to be truthful the US Constitution is in fact primarily a negative document, limiting and constraining the powers of the Federal government. As far as that goes you are correct. But these things are more than beliefs, David. They are the reality.

Yes, we have electively put a bunch of statists at the controls of our government, but they misled their way into power. The people as a whole did not vote for the massive expansion of government that ‘hope and change’ has turned out to be, thus the rise of the Tea Party movement, whose participants have been characterized by the head of the House of Representatives as anarchists and Nazis.

The heads of the ruling class and the media elites, what Brooks is calling the educated class among us, chaff at the desire of the people to peacefully assemble and petition the government. The President himself has been envious of the power wielded by autocrats and dictators, noting how much easier it is for them to 'get things done'. These people display their contempt for the very freedoms this country was founded upon.

Now the ’statists’ are bent on taking over another private industry, their third major acquisition in under a year. It’s been a big year for ‘Big Government’.

Yes, it is rather arrogant for him to describe those that would rule through an ever more encompassing state as "the educated class", whereas mere bumpkins like Walter Williams (who are constantly trying to remind us of the moral superiority of freedom, and its necessary pre-condition: limited government) are described as uneducated. Dr. Williams is not only well educated, he was Chair of the Economics Department at George Mason University for many years.

The people in the tea party movement may have doctorates and law degrees. It matters nothing to Brooks. They are all simply understood as part of the 'uneducated class'.

The bozo.

Yeah, I will see you back over at April's place. I am pathetically addicted to that blog!